2 NYC Construction Worker Deaths – Hours Apart

NYC, NY – A construction worker plummeted to his death last week after what authorities are saying that the 43-year old concrete worker probably fell through a hole in the floor at the Manhattan high-rise.

The building, 1 Seaport, is a luxury residential building in the Financial District, featuring condos selling for $1.2 million to $7.5 million.

The worker was laying concrete on the 29th floor of the building when he fell through an apparently unguarded hole in the floor and landed on the second floor of the building. Another worker at the site – which was issued a partial stop-work order from the New York Department of Buildings on Sept. 20 for “possible unsafe crane operation” – told Newsday that he heard a “big thump” and later realized it was the body of the worker.

The all-glass 1 Seaport Residences building rises 670 feet and is described on the project’s web site as “a modern lighthouse.” The features 80 condos, which are encased in floor-to-ceiling glass.

According to news reports, nine violations resulting in fines have been issued to the project since January.

Later Thursday afternoon, two workers plunged from a bucket lift from the third floor at 400 W. 33rd St. on Ninth Avenue, according to a Department of Buildings spokesman.

One of the workers, a 45-year-old man, died. Witnesses at the scene said it appeared that they were wearing safety harnesses, but that they weren’t secured to the bucket. It was the second time a worker had fallen to his death at the site this year; another worker died in June.

A spokesman for Tishman Construction, the contractor for the site, said that the two workers fell while a boom was descending.